Hernandez bears down after pep talk

Even after giving up a couple of walks and a couple of runs in the third inning Sunday, Felix Hernandez was in a position to coast.

After all, the Mariners had scored eight runs in the second inning, giving Hernandez an 8-3 lead.

Joel Pineiro made sure the pitcher's mound was a no-coasting zone. Pineiro took Hernandez to task, politely but firmly telling him in public view in the dugout that he needed to respond to the offense's largesse.

All three of those early runs had come courtesy of Hernandez walks. Giving runs away is a recipe for disaster.

Now here was a teammate and friend holding Hernandez accountable. Did it work? Just a little, yeah. Hernandez retired the next eight batters in a row, and save for a passed ball on what would have been the third out of the sixth inning, he wouldn't have allowed another base runner, much less another run.

Hernandez did give up four more runs after the missed strikeout. Even so, walks were not part of the equation. Pineiro being in Hernandez's face may well have been the difference between winning and losing for Hernandez on Sunday in a game the Mariners eventually won 10-8.

"He told me to think of it as a 0-0 game, and to pitch like it," Hernandez said. "If anybody was to say anything, that would be good. But coming from Joel, it was really important to me. It really helped."

It wasn't all that long ago that Pineiro was the youngest man on the pitching staff, back in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Those teams were big-time winners, and pitchers helped the team chemistry by holding each other accountable.

Now that he's a veteran, Pineiro says it's time to give back.

"I feel you have to pass it on," Pineiro said. "Freddy (Garcia), (Jamie) Moyer and (Aaron) Sele did it with me. Now if I see something, I've got to speak up. I told him to be aggressive and trust his stuff. His stuff is the best on the staff.

"I think it means something different coming from another player. It always did for me. The coach will say the right thing, but there will be a different perspective. Anyway, it seemed to help."

Pitching coach Rafael Chaves has done everything he can think of to get Hernandez back to the zone he was in last August and September when he had a 4-4 record and 2.67 ERA that made him look like the Next Big Thing. What the Mariners have been is NBT -- Nothing But Tense -- while watching Hernandez this season. With Sunday's win, he's 3-5 with a 5.84 ERA.

So he was delighted to see Pineiro take up the challenge of making things better.

"It was a great job for Joel to stand up and speak like that," Chaves said. "Not so much to comfort Felix but to tell him he's got to keep going, to tell him the club has come through with runs for you and now it's his time to come through for them.

"When you see that, you know that the players are pulling for each other."

There seems to have been much more of that the past three days. Seattle swept San Diego after the Padres came into Friday tied for first place in the National League West. It's the first sweep for Seattle since a late September sweep of the Angels last year.

It was made possible by Seattle's biggest inning of the season. Seattle got four consecutive singles to produce a 2-1 lead, then had Yuniesky Betancourt put down the club's first successful squeeze bunt of the season for a third run.

Still the game almost slipped away from Hernandez when what should have been the third strike of the third out of the sixth inning got past catcher Kenji Johjima, keeping the inning alive. A single, a double and a two-run homer by Dave Roberts produced four quick runs, and Hernandez got out of the inning clinging to an 8-7 lead.

No matter. The Mariners rallied with two runs of their own on an I'm-going-to-make-something-of-this-at-bat-no-matter-what from Richie Sexson in the bottom of the sixth, walking on a full count with the bases loaded. Everett followed with an RBI single for some added cushion.

Rafael Soriano and J.J. Putz closed it out, but there might not have been a game to close out were it not for Pineiro, who didn't even take the field, more proof that baseball is as much a mental challenge as a physical one.

"You always need leadership out of your veteran players," manager Mike Hargrove said. "I've got to believe in other sports, in fact I know in other sports, that it's the same thing. The coach can say something, and the player will get it, but he won't really get it.

"When another player steps up and it's somebody who was out there yesterday or will be out there tomorrow, it's different. Then they really get it."